Who built Thebes of the seven gates? <br />In the books you will find the names of kings. <br />Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock? <br />And Babylon, many times demolished <br />Who raised it up so many times? In what houses <br />of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live? <br />Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished <br />Did the masons go? Great Rome <br />Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom <br />Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song <br />Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis <br />The night the ocean engulfed it <br />The drowning still bawled for their slaves. <br /> <br />The young Alexander conquered India. <br />Was he alone? <br />Caesar beat the Gauls. <br />Did he not have even a cook with him? <br /> <br />Philip of Spain wept when his armada <br />Went down. Was he the only one to weep? <br />Frederick the Second won the Seven Year's War. Who <br />Else won it? <br /> <br />Every page a victory. <br />Who cooked the feast for the victors? <br />Every ten years a great man? <br />Who paid the bill? <br /> <br />So many reports. <br />So many questions.<br /><br />Bertolt Brecht<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/questions-from-a-worker-who-reads/
